Abstract

PIP:

The Joint UN Program on AIDS reports that India has more than 3 million adults infected with HIV, more HIV-infected adults than any other country in the world. By the year 2005, India will have more people infected with HIV than does Africa. Having sex with a Bombay housewife today is at least twice as risky as it was to have sex with a prostitute in the city's red light district in 1988. 2-3% of all women in the city are infected with HIV. There is ignorance, apathy, corruption, and lack of commitment at all levels with regard to HIV/AIDS. Accordingly, India's lackluster campaign against AIDS launched 10 years ago has lost momentum just as the epidemic is exploding and at a time when traditional beliefs about cultural barriers and the sexual behavior of Indian males are being called into question. Considerable homosexual behavior occurs in India. However, the most important factor contributing to the spread of HIV throughout India is the virus' spread from urban areas into small villages, often through migrant laborers. Ignorance, illiteracy, and poverty in villages will make AIDS prevention especially difficult. Indian government policy forbidding the distribution of condoms in prisons, needles to injectable-drug users, and free drugs to AIDS patients further contributes to the spread of HIV.